


You Were Only On My Mind

by aintweproudriff



Series: Author's Picks [16]
Category: The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals - Team StarKid
Genre: !!!, Caffeine, Canon-typical swearing, F/M, Height Differences, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Paul and Bill are bffs, Pining, They both crush HARD, You've been warned, i keep up the starkid tradition of not letting them actually kiss even when the moment's right
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-06
Updated: 2019-04-22
Packaged: 2020-01-05 12:46:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18366311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aintweproudriff/pseuds/aintweproudriff
Summary: As he stared at the ceiling, he wondered if she felt his eyes on days when he couldn't pry his stare away. He thought about what he would say if she confronted him about it."Sorry," he'd say. "I just - you're so pretty."Who is he, Romeo?-Paul and Emma pine.





	1. I wish that you were on what I was on

**Author's Note:**

> yayyy I wrote tgwdlm fanfic - I've been wanting to do this for a while. I got this idea yesterday because I've been pining hardcore the past few days, and I tend to write good fic when I feel bad feelings.  
> Enjoy!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Paul's POV

A coffee at 4:30 was a dumb idea; he’d known that when he walked down to Beanie’s to get it. But they’d gotten off of work early, and Bill and Alice were meeting there and it had been so long since he’d gotten to spend time with Alice, so he figured he would go and hang out with them for a while. He didn’t even think about his order having caffeine in it until after he’d ordered, and then he couldn’t very well ask the cute girl making it (he knew her name was Emma, but only because he’d eavesdropped on her conversations with her coworkers) to start over and make it decaf.  
So he resolved to drink all of it, since he’d paid for it. He sat down with Bill and Alice, and listened to her recite something that happened at school that day. 

“So we’re sitting in Statistics,” she said, laughing. “And Ben and José start playing rock paper scissors.” Her face twisted in giggles. 

Bill nodded patiently, knowing that something must be coming. Paul could the pure love on Bill’s face, and he smiled. 

“And then, Ben loses. No, José lost. It doesn’t matter. The game was that whoever lost had to put their head down and let the winner hit him over the head with an empty plastic water bottle.”

He’d known he missed Alice, and that she had grown up considerably since the last time he spent time with her, but he must not have realized how much. After all, Bill hadn’t changed out the pictures on his desk in a while, so to Paul, Alice’s face was still 14.  
The three of them talked quite a bit more, about Alice’s school and her clubs, her girlfriend, and her plans for the future. It was strange to think about Alice as an aspiring college student, but she has actual hopes and dreams. 

“Did I ever have those when we were that age?” Paul asked. “Plans?”

Bill laughed, closing his eyes and trying to remember, as if it was very difficult. Seventeen was a long time ago for both of them. “I did. You didn’t.”

“And we both ended up at the same place,” Paul pointed out. 

“Yeah, well,” he nodded to Alice, “my life didn’t go according to plan.”

Paul nodded knowingly. “You’re grateful for how it did happen, though.”

Bill smiled. “Yeah, of course.”

Paul thought about the time they spent together that afternoon as he paid the price for his black coffee at Beanies, laying wide awake in bed at 11:30 that night. He and Bill were good friends in middle school and high school, and then they found themselves together again at work and it felt like something had come full circle. Maybe Alice and her friends, hopefully including Deb, would be the same way.  
Eventually, when he felt he had analyzed his life enough, his mind drifted back to some of the other things in Beanies: the coffee smell, the paintings for sale, the pop music from five years ago on repeat, Emma.  
Somehow, always back to Emma. He supposed that made sense. Paul had been going to Beanie’s for over a year now to see this girl. Each time, when he walked down that way, he promised himself that he would talk to her. Each time, walking back to work, he kicked himself for chickening out and not talking to her.  
He couldn’t help it; he knew himself too well. Every crush he had ever had before, he had fucked up because he put his foot in his mouth. He said something dumb or mean on accident because he didn’t want to seem too invested. So rather than talk to Emma, he spoke to her as little as possible, while still getting his fix of seeing her every day. She probably thought he was weird, the dude who came in each day but never said anything. Better that than her thinking he was an asshole.  
As he stared at the ceiling, he wondered if she felt his eyes on days when he couldn't pry his stare away. He thought about what he would say if she confronted him about it. 

"Sorry," he'd say. "I just - you're so pretty."

Who was he, Romeo?

Okay, so he knew he would never actually say any of this to her. But if he could say anything, he'd talk about her voice, her walk and the way she sometimes danced to the music, how that one time he had made her laugh and discovered that she covered her mouth when she laughed, because when she laughed hard she snorted. He’d mention how she didn’t take any shit from her boss and coworkers (who were annoying), how she could make the best coffee of all of them in her sleep, and how her height was actually endearing - she could kick his ass, even though she was half his height. And those were just the things he'd noticed by watching her. Imagine if he actually got to know her.  
He was sure she liked all sorts of cool things. Maybe she was a fan of a sports team or two, and got heated whenever they won or lost. Maybe she loved her friends more than life, and would steal and kill for them. He had heard her talking about her college classes - botany. Maybe she wanted to have a greenhouse and grow plants. 

Without a doubt, it was weird to be thinking about it. Speculating about this girl he’d only ever seen and bought coffee from. 

Paul groaned loudly and rolled over. He could get out of bed, get something done. He had some work on his kitchen table he could do, but it wasn’t pressing. The bathroom was filthy, so he could clean that. But even if he wasn’t tired, his bed sure was comfortable.  
He pulled his covers up and stared at the ceiling for a while longer. Maybe tomorrow, when he went for coffee - he’d need it, after tonight - he’d talk to Emma about something, anything. Just to get to know her a little better. If he talked to Bill about it, Bill would make him do something.  
It was better to try than to keep going back day after day with this sinking feeling in his chest; he knew that. Something had to be done.  
He closed his eyes. He’d deal with that later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading! I really hope you liked it, leave me a kudo and/or comment if you did, it'll make my day and help me be motivated to write more of these.   
> tumblr: @lesbianpomatter  
> writing tumblr: aintweproudriff


	2. Just to see your face

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Emma's POV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lol this is the fastest I've updated a fic all 2019.  
> Also! All of these lyrics are from Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness songs because they're so good ("I wish that you were on what I was on, but you were only on my mind" made me lose my shit the first time I heard it)

Emma hated her fucking life. Plain and simple, she was done with the shit that came her way.  
Okay, so at least some of this was the byproduct of it being the week before midterms, but she was allowed to be angry at that, among the many other things that were going wrong in her life.  
Hidgens gave her a D on a big project, when she thought they had a deal about what her grade would be. For another, she'd been booked for a ten hour shift at work, despite having told her bitch of a boss that she'd need some time off so she could study. She needed to talk to the professor, but she was busy at work. She needed to work so she could have money, but she couldn’t because she had school to do.  
Zoey wouldn’t shut up, but that was nothing new. Asshole men - boys, really - at school were horrible too. She had tried to get into dating a little bit, mostly to let off some steam, but it hadn’t taken long for her to realize that she was spending a lot of money and time on guys that only wanted her to send nudes.  
Plus, depression had been kicking her ass, so getting out of bed and putting on a clean shirt was a difficult enough chore to do, not to mention everything else on top of it.  
So yeah, she was struggling. But she was going to use the tricks she’d learned in therapy (a necessary evil after Jane had died and she had stayed in bed for a week and a half). Stay in the moment as much as possible, ground yourself at every possible opportunity. 

She liked to turn coins over in her hands to help ground herself. She would focus on the feeling, the sound, hell even the smell. The important thing was that she could control something, even something small, in the palm of her hand.  
Actually, that was one of the best parts about being a barista. She could make something from a bunch of other things, and it would have been something small that she was the god of.  
Controlling things herself was only one step up from having things in her life that were controlled. For example: her bus got there on the same time every day, no matter the weather; her biology classes always started five minutes late, because Hidgens lived on island time; Paul walked to Beanies from up the block once a day for a black coffee, but she never knew at what time he would appear. She made that a guessing game, most days. Not today, though, when the uncertainty might have killed her. 

So she didn’t miss him until it was 4:00 and she realized that she hadn’t seen him yet. She looked down at her watch. There were 45 minutes until her shift was over, so if he was going to come, he'd better get there soon. Or maybe was sick that day, and couldn't get to work. Hey - it happened to the best of them. Although she'd been working at Beanie's for a year and a half now, and seen him every weekday, even that one time when she was almost positive that he was either incredibly hungover or feverishly sick. The determination that he must have had was formidable.  
She started to clean up for the end of her shift, even though she had a while yet. No one was in the shop, so it didn't matter. 

The bell on the door rang, and she looked up to see who was walking in. A teenager, almost an adult, followed by a Bill, who she recognized from when he came to the shop with Paul. She had heard Bill talk about his daughter a few times, and she wondered if this was her.  
And then finally, Paul himself stepped through the door. She smiled when she saw him, glad that she hadn’t missed her favorite regular. She probably wasn’t supposed to have favorites, but if it came down to the ones she knew best, Paul and Ted, she’d pick Paul any day. Plus, it wasn’t like he’d ever know he was her favorite. Their exchanges were brief, formal, and professional. But she did think about him sometimes. She wondered what kind of work he did, what he liked to do in his free time, what he wanted to do.  
She wanted to get to know him. There was something nice about the Paul she’d made up in her head, the one who liked to bike and write, but she thought that the actual Paul might be nicer. After all, Paul was charismatic, obviously friendly (although kind of a grump), and cute. 

"Hi guys," she grinned at them. "What'll it be? Besides the black coffee, of course," she nodded at Paul, who turned bright red. 

One iced mocha, black coffee, and cafe latte later, Paul, Bill, and Bill's daughter were sat at a table on the other side of the shop, chatting amiably. She could hear snippets of their conversation, and laughed quietly along with them at the funny stories each of them told.  
Bill and Paul had gone off on a tangent about how old they were when Zoey finally came out from the back of the store. 

“Emma,” she whined, and Emma had to clench her fist to keep herself from yelling. “Why do you like that one guy so much?”

Emma knew exactly what she was talking about, but she wasn’t about to let Zoey know that. 

“Which one guy?”

“The tall one, the brunette over there. You always push me out of the way to take his order. Sometimes you see him coming down the block and you start making it so it’s ready for him.”

Emma smiled as passive-aggressively as possible. “Well, Zoey, I’m a proactive and productive employee. Compare that to the one drink you’ve made today in your five hours of being here, and factor in how you made that drink for yourself, and maybe you’ll think of some way to improve your work ethic.”

“Okay,” Zoey laughed sarcastically. “But just so you know: he likes you back. Actually, I think he’s like halfway in love with you.”

Emma turned to watch Zoey as she walked back to the break room, and almost overcame her hatred of her to tell her that she definitely did not-  
-Shit.  
Okay, so maybe she liked Paul. He was, like she'd said, pretty cute. And nice. And he turned bright red whenever she gave him his coffee. And he seemed like he had a steady life, which she craved.  
As much as she hated to admit it, Zoey had a point about how sometimes Emma waited for Paul. He made her feel this kind of - well, peace was too strong of a word, but it got the point across. He was a moment of certainty in the crazy coffee shop, and she appreciated that. 

That was enough of thinking like that, especially when Paul was sitting _right there_ across the room. She could see his face, and hear his laugh, which kind of felt like a shot of espresso. Okay, fuck this. She couldn’t keep on this train of thought. She shook her head, checked her watch, and realized she could clock out.  
On her way out the door, though, she stole one more glance back at the table where Paul had sat. He, Bill, and Bill's daughter left while she was in the break room punching her card, which was just as well. If he was here, she didn't know what she might have done. Something dumb, without a doubt. 

-

She thought about him more that night, even when she didn't want to. Pressing play on her old cheesy "crushing" playlist from high school didn't help either, but she couldn't help it. If she was going to have a crush like a high schooler, she may as well revert to full levels of pathetic-ness.  
If she was honest with herself, it was kind of fun. Crushes always made her feel hopeful, and she wasn't sure when she'd last felt that exact emotion.  
The last thought she recognized before she fell asleep was a distinct happy one - she'd see Paul tomorrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright!!! There will be a chapter 3, and if you want to see anything in particular, let me know in a comment.


	3. The lines we walk are paper thin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Paul's POV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Bekah," you say, "how many times are you going to add another chapter and say you didn't see it coming?"
> 
> "This is the last time," I promise, reasonably sure I'm telling the truth.

He walked into Beanies, bright and early the next morning. He hadn’t slept hardly at all, too preoccupied with the caffeine and thoughts of coming back for more, and seeing Emma again. Like clockwork, when he walked in, there she was. She had her back turned to him, and was stocking a shelf with pastries, bobbing her head to the music that crackled through the shitty speakers overhead.  
When the bell on top of the door rang, however, she turned around. At first, she slouched, her face deadpan either from distaste for what she was doing or for the morning, but Paul was pleasantly surprised to notice that she seemed to straighten up and smile - a genuine smile that made him struggle to keep calm - when she saw his face.  
She was probably just practicing good customer service, but he could dream. 

"Morning," he waved his hand a tiny bit, and gave the smallest smile. "Large black coffee, please."

She turned around to pour it. "Large, huh? Normally you get a medium. Hard morning?"

He tilted his head to the side, completely surprised by her asking a question. He couldn't think of the last time she had done that. "Um, something like that. I was in here yesterday afternoon and had a coffee, and then I had too much caffeine in my system to fall asleep, so-" he pointed to the cup she slid across the table. 

"Oh, okay," she chuckled. “Two twenty-five, please.”

Again, she had surprised him. “Isn’t that the cost for a medium?”

“Well, yeah,” she nodded, as if she was saying ‘well, duh.’ “But a few cents doesn’t matter.”

Paul hummed. “If you say so.”  
As he handed over his card, he wondered if he would be able to disagree with her. He didn’t think he would, not when she smiled sarcastically at him like she was, and he could almost hear Ted’s voice calling him a push-over and people-pleaser for it. But really, who could blame him if he wanted her to like him? And, if she said that a few cents didn’t matter, then he certainly wasn’t about to fight it.  
“Um, thank you. Have a good day,” he said as she gave him back his card, and turned to leave. 

“You too, Paul!” she called after him, and he almost had his hand on the door to push it open when he realized what was wrong with that sentence. 

He turned around. “Have I told you my name before?”

“Shit,” she whispered, and buried her head in her folded arms on the countertop, giving a full view of the way her hair twisted and turned into an updo with too many pins to count. “No, you haven’t,” she mumbled into the crook of her arm. “I’m sorry, it’s probably really creepy that I know it.”

“No, no,” Paul walked back to the counter as quickly as he could, and bent down so he was level with her face, with only the space of the coffee-stained marble between them. “I mean,” he conceded as she looked up and made eye contact with him. “It is kind of creepy, but I’m not mad or creeped out.”  
He debated if he should say the next sentence or not, took a swig of the still-too-hot coffee, and blurt out his words. “I know your name, and I don’t think you’ve ever told me, so we could call it even.”

She laughed, and he thought he saw something peaceful and maybe fond in her eyes before she stood up again. “Sounds like a deal to me. I won’t ask how you learned mine, and you won’t ask how I learned yours.”

“Agreed,” he nodded solidly. “Plus, I’m in here every day, so it’s not like it’s totally unexpected.” 

“Right, right.”

He lifted up his coffee in a ‘cheers’ motion. “Well, I’ll see you tomorrow, then,” he paused, then put as much emphasis as possible on his next word, “Emma.”

“See you then, Paul,” Emma laughed as he walked away. 

He pushed the door open and stepped through, but not wanting his high from talking to Emma to end just yet, he turned back around to look in at her one more time. She had already turned around, and was trying to get the last remaining tray of pastries on the top shelf of the display case, but he smiled as he realized that she was too short to reach.  
Frustrated, she pulled her arms back down and even stomped her foot once. Then she put the tray on the counter again before looking up and making eye contact with Paul. 

Shit. She’d seen him watching her. All of his fears about being seen while he stared and admired her were coming true. 

“Hey!” she mouthed, and gestured that he should come back into the shop. 

He did so willingly, the bell that rang as the door opened and closed somehow both reassuring and daunting. 

“I can’t reach.”

“I saw that,” Paul blurted before he could stop himself. He bit his tongue to keep from telling her that he thought it was cute. 

“Yeah, well, thanks for watching and not coming into help,” she rolled her eyes, but he was pretty sure it was teasing. “Could you get it for me? Usually someone else - someone taller - is in here to do this, but not this morning.”

Paul, agreed, hoping he didn’t look too hasty. “There,” he said, putting the tray up. “Like that?”

“Um, a little to the right?” Emma asked, and he did as he was told. 

“Like that?”

“Perfect,” she commended, and he could hear the smile in her voice. 

That smile was pretty much all that he could think about as he brought his arms back down, turned towards her, and came face to face with her. Well, actually, her face was about at the height of his chest, but still. She was right there. Less than a foot away. 

“Whoops, sorry,” he said, realizing how strange it would be to stay where he was, despite how thoroughly right it felt. He took a step back. 

“No,” she shook her head and put her hand on his elbow, effectively negating the distance he’d put between them. “Don’t be.”

He took a deep breath in and held it as he watched the whole world spin around him. It was just Emma, really, but the difference between Emma and the whole world was minute, if it existed at all. It felt like maybe one of them wanted to lean in, close the gap, something, but his phone chirped from his back pocket. 

“Shit,” he breathed, right into her face. “That’ll be a coworker, asking where I am.”  
Sure enough, it was a text from Charlotte, wondering if she should cover for him if he was going to be late.  
He loved her. Paul shot her a text back saying that he’d be there soon, but that if Mr. Davidson asked, he was in the bathroom.

“I need to go, but um. I can come back later?”

Emma gave an awkward, toothy smile. “Okay! I mean, don’t feel pressured to, but I can definitely get a break at about, like, eleven or noon, if that works for you?”

“I’ll see you then,” he nodded, and smiled back at her, feeling warmer by the second. 

Before she could respond, he ducked out of Beanie's, hearing the bell on the door for the third time that morning. This time, he did his best not to turn around, for fear that if he did, and she saw, he would be sucked back in, and wouldn't want to go to work. 

But he couldn't wait for later that day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! If you've got any ideas for chapter 4, let me know! (a kiss is probably on the way, and I'm very excited)


	4. On a Razor's edge (At the first sign of light)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Emma's POV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay it's done!!! I feel like they're slightly too mushy and ooc in this chapter, but oh well.   
> I thought about not letting them get a happy ending in this fic, because my pining problems don't get a happy ending (stood up 3 times by the same girl, whatever), but I'm glad that they do get one because I love them.

At eleven-thirty exactly, Paul walked back into Beanies, his hands shoved into his pockets. He must have heard ‘eleven or noon’ and decided to split the difference. She wondered if he’d been looking forward to this as much as she had, maybe even neurotically checking her phone like she had begun to do. Emma waved at him and held up her finger, mouthing: ‘one minute’ as best as she could.   
He gave her a thumbs up to show that he understood, and went to grab a table by the door. Once she sent her current customer on their way, thanking them half-heartedly for dropping their change in the tip jar, she turned around.   
"Zoey, Nora, I'm taking my break. I'll be back in forty minutes, okay?"

She didn't hear a response, so she assumed the two of them had heard and they were okay with it. No news is good news, better to ask forgiveness than permission, and all that bullshit. Emma yanked the straps of her apron off over her head and speed-walked over to Paul, who was sitting with his hands folded awkwardly on the table, watching her happily as she walked over. 

"Okay," she said. "Can we go take a walk? I'm suffocating in here."

“For sure,” Paul nodded and stood up, and she couldn’t help but grumble a little bit to herself as he stretched to at least a foot taller than her. “Where do you want to go?”

Emma shrugged. “I dunno, around.”

“Alright then, around it is.”

He held open the door for her; normally she'd hate a guy doing that - if someone thought that would impress her or something, they were dead wrong - but when Paul did it, she struggled to find anything wrong with it. In fact, when Paul did it, it felt genuinely kind. It wasn't necessarily impressive, but she was kind of impressed with how he took everything she thought she knew and switched it on its head.   
The sun outside blinded her when she first set foot on the sidewalk, but once she blinked her eyes and got used to it, she could see how nice it the weather actually was.

"Ugh, I've been inside since this morning, I can't believe I've been missing this," she said, gesturing to the bustling street. 

Paul grinned. "I know. I stepped outside to come down to Beanies, and I was like 'woah.'"

"Woah."

“Woah,” he laughed. “Do you really get a forty minute break?”

“No,” Emma admitted, sucking air in through her teeth. “But I doubt they actually listen to what I say, so at least I cover my ass if I tell them I’ll be gone for forty minutes. If I’m back in thirty, fine, and if I’m back in forty, they can’t get mad.”

“Clever.”

The two of them started to walk down the street, away from both Beanies and the big office complex where Paul had gone to work that morning. People, all going about their days, passed them on every side. Bikers, walkers, runners, people with dogs and babies and elderly couples out for a midday stroll. Emma smiled especially at those old men and women walking side by side, content after all those years. She knew she liked being at Paul's side, even after walking with him for only a few minutes. She wondered if, in fifty years, she would still like that. She couldn't imagine ever being with one person for so long, but Paul felt so right that the thought came naturally to her.   
"Slow down, Emma," she thought to herself, and took a breath to get back the reigns of her brain. 

"So Paul, tell me about yourself," she said as a way to distract herself from herself. 

He leaned his head back, as if to find the right words. "Oh man. What do you want to know?"

"I want to know anything that you want to tell me."

"Okay, um." He nodded. "Well, I've lived in Hatchetfield for my entire life, and I like it here. I'm an accountant for a small company up the road, which is an easy job since I'm good with numbers. I like to run, even though I'm not fast at all, and, um, oh! I hate musicals."

“You hate musicals?” Emma asked, honestly struggling to see what anyone could have against something that was usually happy and fun. 

“Yeah, they weird me out. People singing and dancing on stage seems strange.”

“Huh. I’m not sure I’ve ever met someone who -”

“Yeah,” he nodded. “It’s an unpopular opinion. Luckily for me, though, as long as I avoid most Disney movies and don’t go to the Starlight for anything other than a play, I don’t really have to deal with musicals.”

She thought about it for a moment. “That makes sense. You know, I was in my high school musical.”

“You were in high school musical? I hate that one more than I hate most musicals, and I’ve seen all three multiple times.”

She shook her head and laughed, realizing what she’d said. “Then why would you watch it at all?”

“My coworker’s daughter, Alice,” he explained, taking a careful step over a crack in the sidewalk. “She used to love them, and I used to babysit her, so-”

“Ah. No, I was in Brigadoon in high school.”

“At Hatchetfield High?” he asked, his eyebrows creating shadows over his eyes as he looked down at her.

“Yeah, why?”

“I think I saw that one. It was the first musical I saw, and then I decided that I hated all musicals.”

Emma stopped walking to get a good look at Paul’s face. He didn’t notice until he was a few steps ahead of her, and then he turned around slowly to meet her eyes. 

Paul tilted his head. “What’s that look for?” 

“It’s almost like we’ve known each other for longer than we’ve actually known each other.” Emma grinned, squinting. “Did that make sense?”

“Yeah,” Paul mused, running a hand through his hair. “Perfect sense, actually.”

“Perfect sense might be a bit of a stretch-”

“It’s not. You were a big part of my life, since you were the reason I didn’t like musicals, even before I even met you in person. And then you were a big part of my life all these years later, since you worked at Beanies and made my day better every time I saw you.”

Emma felt herself blush.

“And that was before I talked to you, and then now we’re-” Paul looked around him, taking note of the street signs. “We’re on the corner of Chester and Saddlers, outside of a fucking bodega, and I feel like I just know that whatever I do, you’re still going to be a big part of my life.”

Emma wanted to say that she didn’t know what to say, that she was too scared to reply, but her mouth moved before her brain could catch up.   
“I feel the same way. I don’t know what I’d do with myself if you weren’t at Beanies every day, and I definitely don’t know what I would’ve done if you hadn’t helped me this morning, and I’m so ready to have someone like you here with me, and I want to be there with you. And, like, maybe it’s totally off the wall to say this to someone when you’ve known them this long, but-”

“Yeah, it’s nuts,” Paul interrupted, laughing. Even as he made fun of her, though, she couldn’t help but notice the sunshine illuminating the high points of his face and his blue eyes that were so much more ocean than eyes. 

“Shut up, you did this too.”

He stretched out a hand, but stopped before he could actually touch her. “I mean, don’t stop. You’re doing great.”

Emma rolled her eyes and lifted her hand up to catch his, which was floating somewhat awkwardly in midair. “Thanks.”

Their hands dropped, fingers intertwining on the way down.   
Emma took a deep breath in. “You should come by at my break again tomorrow, if you have it off. We can go grab lunch.”

Paul smiled and rubbed his thumb over the back of her hand. “I’d like that. Eleven thirty?”

“Yeah.”

“Will do,” he said, and the two of them took a deep breath in, treasuring the closeness to each other in the warm light of the beautiful day. 

A car zipped by on the road, leaving a puff of exhaust to cover Paul and Emma. 

“Isn’t that just my luck?” she yelled to the sky. “I finally have a good moment and-”

“That might be me being a damper on the luck, actually,” Paul shrugged. “I have notoriously bad luck.”

She sent him a side-eye. “Well, if that’s the case, maybe we’re actually worse off together. I changed my mind - don’t come tomorrow.”

He chuckled, but it was half-assed. “You don’t actually mean that, right?”

“No, Paul.”

“Okay, good. Don’t joke like that with me yet, you’ll freak me out.”

Emma agreed, then pulled her phone out of her back pocket. “Shit,” she whispered. “It’s been twenty minutes since we left, I should get back to Beanie’s, or Nora might get pissed.” She looked up at Paul’s face and tried to give her best ‘I’m sorry’ look. 

“It’s okay, I should get back to work too,” he squeezed her hand, and she felt a rush. “Let’s head back.”

They turned and walked up the street, half commenting on things they saw around them and half being glad to be there with the other person. Their hands stayed together the whole walk up.   
When they reached the front door of Beanies, Paul almost kept walking, but Emma stopped him. 

“Sorry,” he slouched into himself as he laughed. “Wasn’t thinking.”

“It’s fine,” she shook her head. “I didn’t want to stop. But I’ll see you soon?”

Paul smiled. “I’ll be in tomorrow morning for a black coffee, and then I’ll be back at eleven thirty to pick you up for a lunch date.”

At the word ‘date,’ Emma felt herself go red, and her cheeks pucker like she’d eaten something sour, but they pulled her lips into a smile. It had been a long time since she’d felt like this, relieved and free and on wings. Out of the corner of her eye she saw one of the elderly couples that she had seen earlier, walking the opposite direction of how they had been walking before. Maybe it was the feeling of liberty or the sight of pure love that made her do it, but she stood up on her tiptoes and pressed a quick kiss to Paul’s lips.   
She felt his breath on her face as he exhaled, awestruck and content, and then reached his free hand around to her back and bent down to reach her for another kiss. 

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said when they pulled away, a smile plastered on her face (and his, she noticed). 

“Tomorrow,” he echoed. “Bye, Emma.”

“Bye, Paul”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so so much for reading, it means the world to me!

**Author's Note:**

> There will probably be a chapter two to this (Emma's perspective, perhaps?) and MAYBE a chapter three if people seem to like it. So if you'd like more, or if there was something in here you liked, please leave me a comment or kudo - it'll make my day!
> 
> writing tumblr: @aintweproudriff  
> fandom tumblr: @lesbianpomatter


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